They sat down opposite one another, the old journalist and the young musician. Neither ate; Gesa was dumb. Delileo stroked his hand from time to time and murmured, "My poor boy, my poor boy!"
Suddenly Gesa raised his eyes to the old man's face. "Who was it, father?" he asked in a hollow voice.
The "droewige Herr" dropped his eyes.
"I--I do not know"--he stammered.
"Father!" cried Gesa, starting up.
"Nay, I knew nothing. She never confided in me. Very lately I had a suspicion, a fear"--the old father grew more and more distressed.
"You must have remarked it, if Annette was interested in any one?" cried Gesa, anger in his eyes and shame on his cheeks.
"Ah! she fell under the spell of a demon"--the father stopped, and shut his lips tightly together, and said no more.
One day followed another in monotonous sadness. The "droewige Herr" went to his daily work: Gesa sat in the green salon and brooded. He said nothing of any more engagement, nothing of going on any more journeys. He dreaded every meeting with acquaintances, with all to whom he had talked of his happiness. There was one single human being for whom he longed, and that was de Sterny. De Sterny had such a rare, almost feminine art of understanding and sympathizing! And then, he would not be surprised like the others--he had foretold it all!
Gesa learned de Sterny's whereabouts. The virtuoso was in England. Gesa wrote him a simple, heartfelt letter, in which he confided to his friend the sudden death of Annette, and ended with the words "Let me know when you are to be in Paris. I will remove there, in order to work near you. Intercourse with you is the only thing in the world that could afford me any comfort now."